


First Things

by Philosopher_King



Series: Whatever is done from love [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Bath Sex, Butt Plugs, Demisexual Loki, First Time, Followed by successful first-time sex, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Oral Sex, Philosophy, Philosophy Jokes, Prostate Massage, Recreational Drug Use, References to Depression, Sexual Roleplay, Sibling Incest, Unsuccessful first-time sex, just a little bit, she's just a friend, the OFC isn't paired with anyone, this was not a thoroughly planned-out fic, you can tell I'm just adding these as I go along
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2018-11-21 19:26:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11364051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philosopher_King/pseuds/Philosopher_King
Summary: "'I want you to fuck me,' Loki panted beside Thor's ear. ... It was the third time that Loki had spoken those words. The first two times Thor had put him off, thinking that he was not ready, that he did not really know what he wanted. 'First things first,' Thor had told him, thinking to ease him into it with other, less weighty things... but he knew now that the desire Loki had expressed was no thoughtless, impulsive whim. 'All right,' Thor said."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MagdalenaCS](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagdalenaCS/gifts).



> MagdalenaCS, to whom this work is dedicated, requested a fic about Loki's first time (with penetrative sex, that is, because Loki has his first experience with some other sexual activities in Parts 2 and 3 of this series, [The Tree of Knowledge](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6209017) and [The Paradox of Desire](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7117072)). I hadn't written it because I didn't have any ideas about it, really, but then I thought it would be fun if Thor got some help from his friend at the brothel (referenced in Parts 3 and 7) who introduced him to the joys of butt play and taught him how to deep-throat. Don't worry, Thor only frequents safe, well-kept brothels staffed by people who like their jobs and want to be there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written pretty fast, so I apologize if the literary quality leaves something to be desired...
> 
> If you know something about Norse mythology, you can probably guess at the "incident" involving Loki and dwarves. I do have an MCU-compatible version of it rattling around in my head which I might someday turn into fic.

“What do you want, brother?” Thor whispered, half-growled, against Loki’s neck.

Their clothes were strewn haphazardly across the floor of Thor’s bedroom.  They themselves were sprawled on the bed, Loki with his limbs splayed out, limp and boneless save for his straining cock, and Thor half atop him, having lavished every inch of his skin with kisses and licks and playful bites.  They were both loose-limbed and light-headed from the (perhaps excessive) quantities of wine they had drunk at the banquet marking the departure of the delegation from Nidavellir.  Thor knew that their presence had made Loki uneasy, to say the least; while the dwarves who had been involved in the incident were not permitted to set foot in Asgard, they were still clan leaders, and these envoys were their brothers, their cousins, their sons.  That was (partly) why Thor was being so attentive to his brother: he wanted to take his mind off it all, the uneasiness, the memories.  He wanted to take Loki’s mind off everything.  Too much thinking always seemed to get him into trouble.

“I want you to fuck me,” Loki panted beside his ear.  The words were slightly slurred from the overwhelmed arousal that followed in the wake of Thor’s very thorough attentions, as well as from the wine.

It was the third time that Loki had spoken those words.  The first two times Thor had put him off, thinking that he was not ready, that he did not really know what he wanted.  _“First things first,”_ Thor had told him, thinking to ease him into it with other, less weighty things—ever the caring elder brother, he thought with wry self-reproach, regardless of what he and his little brother were doing together.

But having heard what Loki had whispered in explanation when he believed that Thor was asleep, Thor had promised himself that he would not refuse again.  _“I want you inside me because you already are—always.  I want to feel you to be a part of my body, as I already feel you to be in every other way—as much as I might wish to deny it.”_   Thor could not say that he truly understood how his brother felt, but he did know now that the desire he had expressed was no thoughtless, impulsive whim.  And tonight of all nights, Thor wanted to refuse him nothing.

“All right,” Thor said.

Loki looked shocked.  He pulled his head away from Thor’s to look him in the eye.  “Not even an ‘are you sure’?” he asked, incredulous.

“I already know the answer,” Thor replied.  “I’ll warn you, though: I’ve never done this before, either, so there may be some… trial and error.”

“Not even with one of your women?”

Thor shook his head.  “None of them ever suggested it, and it never would have occurred to me to ask.”

“And what of the… brothel employee who introduced you to the pleasures of this kind of penetration?” Loki asked slyly, a touch mocking.

Thor could feel himself blushing slightly, but he smiled nonetheless.  “It was not something she wanted for herself.  She explained that men have something inside that makes it far more pleasurable for them than for women—which is not to say that it _can’t_ be pleasurable for women…”

Loki looked unimpressed.  “ _She_ explained that, did she?  And where were you during our boyhood anatomy lessons?”

Thor’s blush deepened.  “I suspect that I deliberately let my mind wander because I could not stand to hear our fusty old tutor speaking of such things.”

Loki sighed.  “He does have children, you know.”

“Please don’t remind me,” Thor said, wincing.

“How do you all manage to be such prudes?” Loki said with an exasperated head-shake.

“‘You all’?  Who are ‘we all’?”

“You—people who want sex for its own sake.  You build up all this mystique around it, as if it weren’t just bodies moving in space—just like everything else.”

“I—what?”

“Forget it,” said Loki, heaving another sigh.  “I know a few things from what I’ve read.  I’ve done some things to prepare myself using magic—mostly related to, er, cleanliness—but a fair amount of… lubrication will also be needed.”

“Will this do?” Thor asked, leaning over awkwardly to open the drawer in his bedside table and produce the jar of salve that they had previously used to smooth the movement of hands over pricks.

“Yes, I’m sure that’s fine.”

Thor handed over the jar.  Loki took up a generous amount and reached between his legs to smear it over his opening, then coated one finger and, after a slight hesitation, slid it inside.

“Are you all right?” Thor asked, noting Loki’s frown.

“Yes, of course.  It just… feels odd.”

“You haven’t tried fingering yourself before?” Thor asked as evenly as he could, careful to keep any surprise or judgment from his tone.

Loki seemed to perceive some judgment nonetheless, because his “No, I haven’t” was sharp and somewhat irritable.

“Here, let me,” Thor offered.  Loki raised an eyebrow.  “My fingers are bigger than yours,” he reasoned, “so it might be more… helpful.”

“All right, then,” Loki agreed after a pause.

Thor picked up the jar of salve from the bed and coated his own fingers with it.  He laid his other hand gently on the inside of Loki’s calf to prompt him to spread his legs.  He obeyed, but with an anxious look in his eyes, and then he immediately turned his head to one side and covered his face with his clean hand.  Thor could see that his cock was already starting to soften and lose its flush of arousal.

“We don’t have to do this if you don’t feel ready,” Thor said, gentle but firm.

“No, no, I do, I am,” Loki insisted, again with the irritable tone that seemed to serve as a mask for his discomfort.

“I’d feel more confident of that if you looked at me.”

Loki squeezed his eyes shut at first, but then opened them, apparently with a great force of will, and turned his head to meet Thor’s eyes.  His lips were pressed tightly together.

“I’m going to try one finger,” Thor told him.  He pressed his index finger against the knot of oil-slicked muscle; it tightened before briefly relaxing to let him in, but then clenched again around his finger.

“Mmmph,” said Loki, biting at the insides of his closed lips.

“Try to relax your muscles,” Thor suggested.

“I know, I just—it seems instinctive for them to tighten up.”  Loki flashed a strained half-smile.  “I think they don’t want things coming in from outside.”

Thor chuckled.  “That’s what they think now, but they’ll learn better.  Let’s try a second finger.”

Loki nodded, and Thor pressed his middle finger against his hole to join its partner.  It slipped in with less resistance than the first had.  He still felt that reflexive clench at the intrusion, but Loki quickly caught himself and forced the muscles to loosen.  Thor tried spreading his fingers apart, and Loki inhaled sharply.

“Does that hurt?” Thor asked anxiously.

“No, it—feels almost… pleasant?”  Loki breathed deeply, clearly making an effort to relax his mind as well as his body.

Thor smiled slyly.  “There’s something that will definitely feel pleasant, if you’ll give me a moment…”

He pulled his fingers together again and slowly slid them in deeper while Loki’s breathing quickened—with pleasure, discomfort, or panic, he was not sure.  Both of Loki’s hands were clutching at the bedding, the knuckles standing out stark and pale.  With his left hand Thor pried Loki’s right hand away from the sheets and gripped it in his own, while he crooked the fingers of his own right hand ever so slightly upward and searched until he found what he was seeking.

“Oh!” Loki exclaimed, his eyes widening.

Thor’s smile broadened, and he gradually increased the pressure on the little nodule above his fingers.  Loki cried out softly, threw his head back, and closed his eyes, while his prick twitched, recovering some of the flush and fullness it had lost while he was adjusting to this unaccustomed touch.  Thor continued to rub at it and watched the blood rise in Loki’s cheeks and a hint of pink start to spread over his chest.  Loki’s grip on Thor’s hand tightened, almost painfully, as if mimicking the way his ass clenched around Thor’s fingers.  Thor’s own cock swelled and twitched as he imagined those powerful muscles clenching just as tightly around it…

“Fuck, I… it’s too much, I need to…”  Loki released his hold on the sheets to take his cock in hand and stroke it once, twice.  “You have to stop, Thor, I’m going to come if you don’t…”

“That’s good, just let it happen,” Thor told him, using his thumb to stroke the back of the hand he was holding.

“But I wanted to wait until you were inside…”

“I am inside, in case you hadn’t noticed,” Thor said with a playful grin, and pressed his fingers upward again to emphasize the point.

“Oh, you know what I mean!”  Loki’s voice sounded tense and shaky with the effort of holding himself back.

“No, it’s good if you come first—you’ll be more relaxed, which will make everything easier.  That’s true with women, anyway, and I don’t see why it wouldn’t be true of men.  Let go, just let go…”

Thor kept rubbing and pressing on that spot inside, alternating gentle touches with firmer ones, until Loki gave in.  He extracted his right hand from Thor’s and started stroking himself again, faster and faster, his harsh breaths turning almost to soft brief moans, until with a slight arch of his back and lift of his hips he came.  Thor left his fingers inside but stopped moving them while Loki’s breathing slowed and calmed, and with his left hand he stroked Loki’s thigh soothingly.  Eventually Loki waved his hand to vanish the spend on his stomach and chest.

“Should I try a third finger now?” Thor asked, still stroking Loki’s thigh, feeling oddly as if he was calming a skittish horse.

Loki took a deep breath, exhaled heavily, and then nodded.  The third finger slipped in almost as easily as the second.  Thor tried parting them a bit, stretching the muscles gradually; they tensed a bit, threatening to clench down, but Loki managed to hold them loose.

“I think—I think I’m ready,” Loki said.  Despite the slight hesitation, his voice was firm and steady.

“All right,” said Thor.  He smoothed some of the salve over his cock, which he had just realized was aching with need after what he had just seen.  He brought it to Loki’s hole, which was reddened and slightly puffy from the work of his fingers but looked just as tight as it had when they had begun.  Thor gently pushed the head of his cock against it, but the muscles held firm.

“Damn it!” Loki hissed.  The muscles around his opening fluttered but then tightened even more.

Thor started stroking his brother’s thigh again, more firmly than before.  “Just relax.  Don’t think about it too much.”

“Because telling someone not to think about something is always so effective,” Loki muttered.

Thor laughed quietly.  “Or think about relaxing things.  Bathing in the hot springs, letting the steam ease all the aches and weariness from your limbs…”

“I like thinking about you in the steam,” Loki teased him.  “All bronzed and glistening, the water beading and dripping off you like seed pearls…”

Thor chuckled again.  “Whatever works.”

He tried pressing his cock against Loki’s entrance again, and the tip slid in, but where it widened he met resistance.  Loki growled in frustration and the head of Thor’s cock slipped back out.

“We don’t have to do this now,” Thor said.  He was still stroking Loki’s leg, in long passes up to the knee and back down to the hip—very much like grooming a horse.  “It can wait.”

“No, it’s fine,” Loki said shortly.  He closed his eyes, took in and released a few deep breaths.  “Try again.”

Thor was dubious, but he did as he was told.  The tip of his cock went in again, and a little further… but when it became difficult he stopped.

“Keep going,” Loki said through gritted teeth.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t, I’m fine,” Loki insisted.  Thor drew back a little and then pressed in again, but it didn’t get easier.  When he heard Loki gasp, he carefully pulled all the way out.

“No, Thor—” Loki began to protest, but Thor cut him off.

“We have to stop.  I won’t let you hurt yourself.”

“But I wanted—”  Loki broke off on a helpless sigh.  “I’m sorry.  I’m sorry.  I don’t know what’s wrong with me, why I can’t…”  He broke off again.  He sounded as if he might have been on the edge of tears, if it weren’t a matter of pride for him not to cry in front of Thor.

“Nothing’s wrong with you.  This is new and strange, and your body needs time to grow accustomed to it.  We can try another time, if you still want to.  Or not.  It doesn’t matter to me, truly.”

“What do you mean, it doesn’t matter?” Loki demanded.

Thor knew better than to take that bait.  Loki was upset and ashamed and would take offense where there was none to be had, or pick a fight out of thin air.

“This matters—what we have done together, all of it matters to me, perhaps more than you know.  But it doesn’t matter to me whether we are together in this particular way, except inasmuch as it matters to you.  As long as we are together, I am content.”

Loki didn’t seem comforted; once the spark of indignation had gone out of him, he simply looked miserable.

“I’ve left you unsatisfied,” Loki said unhappily.

“That’s easily remedied.”  Thor crawled up the bed to lie beside his brother; Loki turned his dejected face toward him and Thor pressed their lips together.  Loki was slow to open his mouth to let Thor in, slow to reciprocate the movements of his tongue and lips, but once he did, he gave in completely, with a quiet whimper that he quickly silenced.  Once they were kissing deeply, Thor began stroking himself in time with the rhythm of the kiss.

When Loki felt Thor’s hand moving against his hip, he abruptly pulled his mouth away.  “Wait,” he said.  “I want—there’s something else we can do.”

He reached back over to the bedside table where Thor had left the jar of salve, took some into his hand, parted his legs slightly, and spread the salve between the very tops of his thighs and over his balls and the stretch of skin behind them.  “Here,” he said, and tugged at Thor’s hand to pull him atop his body.  Then, when Thor was in place, Loki gently guided his cock into the slicked space between his thighs.

Thor hesitantly thrust in, then shuddered at the strength of the sensation.  It was almost like being inside Loki; it was as close as they could come for now.  Loki seemed to be getting pleasure from the slide of Thor’s prick over his balls and perineum, because he groaned and clenched his eyes shut—and then he clenched his thighs more tightly shut, as well, and Thor was gone.  He started thrusting harder and faster, lost in the feeling of Loki’s body under his, the sweet slick pressure around his cock, their sighs overlapping in counterpoint.  He leaned down to kiss Loki again, with a touch of teeth and desperation, and felt Loki’s hand moving beneath him, stroking his own cock as Thor rushed toward his release.

He finished before Loki did—he had been waiting longer, after all—and pulled away to watch Loki finish himself again.  He traced that delicate blush on his chest with light fingertips, ran a finger over his softly parted lips, stroked the backs of his nails over his cheeks, whose unaccustomed color made him think of a sunrise staining with pink the white marble walls of some ancient temple.  With a soft “Ah!” Loki found a second release, less violent than the first but no less lovely.

Once Loki had recovered his breath and cleaned them up with another wave of his hand, Thor asked, “How did you know to do—what we just did?”

Loki exhaled a soft laugh through his nose.  “It’s an ancient Midgardian custom, among the same people who invented philosophy.  And when I say ‘the same people,’ I don’t just mean the same society, the same culture—I also mean the same individuals.  There’s a reason why Plato—or Plato through Socrates and his interlocutors, anyway—is always going on about the smooth thighs of beautiful boys…”

“Well, Plato just became considerably more interesting,” Thor ribbed him.

Loki gave him an unimpressed look from beneath raised eyebrows, then continued in an arch tone.  “It seems the custom has experienced something of a renaissance among a certain class in North America.  A very… well-informed young gentleman I met in New York referred to it as ‘the Princeton rub,’ after a most august American institution.”

“ _Prince-_ ton?  I thought they didn’t have a monarch in North America…”

“Not anymore.  This is an institution that dates from America’s days as the colonies of a monarch.  An Academy, one might say, in some ways like the one that Plato founded—‘a sound mind in a sound body’ and all that.  And what is an Academy without the pleasure to be found between the smooth thighs of young boys?”

Thor snorted.  “Midgard is a very strange place,” he remarked.  He settled in beside Loki, nudging him to turn so that he nestled with his back against Thor’s chest and Thor’s arm around his shoulder.  “I almost begin to understand your fascination with it.”

“Visit a few more times and you will,” Loki assured him.  He sighed and put his hand over Thor’s, resting on his chest.

After a long pause, Loki said, “I’d like to try again.”  Thor startled, and Loki quickly added, “Not now.  But… sometime.  Soon.”

“Of course,” Thor replied.  “Let me… I know someone who might be able to help.”

Loki _hmph_ ed and guessed, “Your friend at the brothel who taught you what wonders lie up your ass?”

“The same,” Thor confirmed, unruffled.  “You’d like her.  Not in the professional way, but to talk to.  She’s a lot like you—smart, well-read, quick-witted…”

“Is that why _you_ like her?” Loki asked slyly.

“Maybe,” Thor realized just as he said it.  “She likes people, though, so she’s not like you in every respect.”

“Nobody’s perfect.”

“Except you?”

“Hardly,” Loki scoffed.  “Now be quiet, I’m trying to go to sleep.”

 _You are perfect,_ Thor wanted to say, but didn’t.  _Moody, misanthropic, esoteric, condescending, and perfect._ He hugged Loki closer to him, provoking an exaggerated cough that signaled him to loosen his hold around Loki’s chest.  He did, then smiled to himself and closed his eyes.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did Loki meet F. Scott Fitzgerald (who happens also to have been played by Tom Hiddleston in _Midnight in Paris_ ) in New York in the '20s? Maybe...


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor seeks some advice from a friend who is a professional in these matters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sjöfn is the name of the goddess of secret or forbidden love; the other names I got from a [list of names from Old Norse](http://www.babynames.net/all/old-norse) on a baby names site.

Two days later, when Thor had an evening free of political and social obligations, he made his way through the city to a building whose tasteful, elegantly lettered sign said “The Mead of Poetry.”  It was an unusually… well, poetic—all right, probably pretentious name for a brothel, Thor had to admit; but it was also a very high-class brothel.

It was in a wealthy part of the city, surrounded by well-respected eating- and drinking-establishments rather than by other institutions of its kind.  Adjacent to it on one side was a jeweler’s gallery selling the finest of gems and craftsmanship from Vanaheim, Alfheim, and Nidavellir as well as Asgard; on the other side was an expensive wine store that sold only the best vintages from all of those realms and sometimes even from Midgard as well.  The employees of The Mead of Poetry—most of whom were female, though perhaps a quarter were male—were carefully selected and broadly educated, as well-trained in giving pleasure to the mind and soul as to the body.  The proprietor and manager, a comely woman of middle age named Hertha, made sure that all of them were there because they enjoyed giving such pleasures and knew they were good at it, not because of poverty or desperation.

A youngish woman was sitting behind a small desk just beside the door, and as soon as Thor entered, she stood with a warm smile.  Thor thought her name was Tove, but he wasn’t entirely sure.

“Welcome back, Your Highness!” she said.  “May I assume that you’re here to see Sjöfn?”

“You may,” he said, returning her smile.  “Is she available?”

The woman who might have been named Tove consulted a large book open in front of her—a ledger of schedules, evidently—and said, “She’s on break for the next twenty minutes, but then she has no one scheduled.  Would you like to wait for her, or should I find someone else?”

“I’ll wait, thank you.”

“Have a seat anywhere,” the young woman invited him, gesturing behind her.

The front room was a lounge of sorts, furnished with luxurious chairs and sofas padded with furs or velvet, carefully arranged around small tables.  Here patrons would sit and wait for an appointment if they knew whom they wanted to visit, or would be entertained and subtly courted by unoccupied employees if they did not.  It was not a busy night; Thor had deliberately chosen a day early in the work week so that Sjöfn would most likely be free.  A few patrons (mostly, but not all, men) sat on couches beside the beautiful, well-dressed people who worked here—most young, but some in their middle years; Hertha herself was known to still take customers of her own from time to time.

Thor sat on an armchair at a table somewhat apart from the people who were already there.  After no more than five minutes, another young woman—Embla? Eydis? something with an ‘E,’ he thought—brought him a mug of mead and a small bowl of hazelnuts, lightly spiced and glazed with honey to compliment the mead.  “On the house,” she said with a grin, then added “Your Highness” somewhat hurriedly.  The mead was house-made, he knew; they kept a hive in the high-walled garden, which was open to patrons and their hosts for the night, but one corner was fenced off and marked with large, clearly lettered signs saying “Do Not Disturb the Bees.”

Thor sat, sipping his (really quite wonderful) mead, nibbling on the hazelnuts, and thinking over, for the thousandth time, how to present his questions to Sjöfn.  It seemed somehow like much longer and much less than twenty minutes before Sjöfn herself appeared at his table—he’d been so distracted, he hadn’t even seen her approach—and told him in a playfully sultry voice, “I’m ready for you now, Your Highness.”

Thor looked up and couldn’t stop a broad grin from breaking over his face.  He liked Sjöfn, liked her wicked sense of humor and underlying warmth as well as her finely made face, to which her slightly-too-large nose and teeth simply added character; her mischievously sparkling green-gold eyes; her softly curling chestnut hair that gleamed copper when it caught the light; her lithe, slightly boyish figure, breasts just a little too small and hips too narrow to form an hourglass.  When she saw his grin, her sultry demeanor cracked and she grinned back.

“Shall we go upstairs?” she suggested, forgetting to put on the sultry voice.

“Lead on, my lady,” he said, and followed her up the stairs and down the hall to the room in which she entertained, noting with fondness her brisk, businesslike walk with hardly a hint of suggestive hip-swaying.  She ushered him in with a gracious bow, then followed him and closed the door behind her.

“Your Highness!  I haven’t seen you in ages.”

“If by ‘ages’ you mean ‘months’…” Thor teased back.  “And please, just ‘Thor.’  There’s no need to call me ‘Your Highness’ in here.”

“That’s not what you said the last time I saw you,” Sjöfn said wickedly.

Thor laughed.  “You can’t deny that it, ah, kindled your fires as well.”

“I’m not denying it,” she said lightly.  “But truly—it’s been long enough since you’ve been here that I was beginning to think you’d found yourself a sweetheart.”

“I, ah…”  Thor cleared his throat.  “Well, actually, you might say that I have.  I’m here for advice, not… anything else.”

Sjöfn gasped with some combination of shock and delight.  “Oh, how wonderful!  I’m so happy for you.  Not happy that I’ll be seeing you less often, of course—and I’d be lying if I said that had nothing to do with, er, remuneration, and you know I’d never lie to you” (she gave him a knowing smirk) “—but I really am delighted to hear it.  And furious that you didn’t tell me sooner!  Who is it, then?”

Thor opened his mouth to reply, but Sjöfn held a hand up and said, “No, let me guess—that’s much more fun.  Is it that warrior maiden you’re such close friends with—well, not a maiden anymore, in that case—Sif?”

“No,” Thor said, a small smile playing about his lips.  He decided to let her guess a few more times before he set her straight—or as close to it as he dared.

“Hmm.  What about that skald whose singing moved you so deeply—Sága, was it?”

“No, not her.”

“Oh, then perhaps the Elf girl, the daughter of the ambassador from Alfheim.  Morwen, Arwen… all their names sound the same, honestly.”

“Her name is Bronwen, but she’s not the one, either.”

“All right, I’m out of ideas.  Who is the lucky woman?”

Thor cleared his throat again, unnecessarily.  “I won’t insult you by asking if you can keep a secret…”

“I should hope not!  It is part of the job description, you know.”

“Yes, I know, which is why I’m telling you… it’s not a woman.”

Sjöfn’s eyes widened, she gasped, then she clapped her hands together and said in an oddly triumphant tone, “Ha ha!”

“What, you’re not going to tell me how surprised you are?” Thor asked dryly.

“Well, I can’t exactly say that I saw it coming—as I said, I’d never lie to you—but I also can’t say I’m _surprised_.”

“Really?”  Thor was honestly puzzled.  “Why is that?”

“You recall that… game of chance that you and your friend Fandral played with me and some of my colleagues?”

“Of course.”  The rules had been complicated—and some of them, Thor suspected, were made up on the spot—but the basic idea was that every combination of rune-sticks thrown corresponded to a sexual act that the thrower had to perform with a certain other player in the game.

“Well, when you were called upon to fellate my dear respected colleague Even… you went at it with a will that I had not quite expected.  Nor did he… he still recalls that evening fondly.”  Sjöfn’s grin reminded Thor strongly of Loki when he was congratulating himself on one of his more successful schemes.

“Oh, indeed?” Thor said, adopting an air of cool confidence that he hoped would drive the rising heat from his face.  “And I all unpracticed…”

“So modest!” Sjöfn laughed.  “Some talents simply come naturally.  Enthusiasm helps—and yours now has some context.  All right, then—who is the lucky _man_?”  A thunderstruck look came over her face and she said, “Tell me it isn’t Fandral.”

Thor was genuinely horrified.  “Merciful Norns, no!”  He was cringing internally as he said it, but anything to throw her off the scent: “Fandral is like a brother to me.”

“Oh, good.  But truly, who is it?”

“I can’t tell you that, I’m afraid—not because I don’t trust you, but because I promised him I wouldn’t.”  That sounded plausible enough, Thor thought.

Sjöfn feigned a pout—very much like Loki, Thor realized, unnerved—and said, “I do understand, but that’s not to say I’m not disappointed.  What was it you wanted advice about, then?”

Thor could already feel himself blushing, which was ridiculous, considering the things he’d done with this woman over the years they’d known each other; but somehow talking about what he was doing with Loki—with his own brother, little though Sjöfn knew—turned him into an awkward boy again.  “He wants me to… to _take_ him, as it were…”

Sjöfn rolled her eyes.  “To penetrate him, you mean?”

Thor was glad that she had said it.  “…but neither of us has ever done that before.  We tried, but without success.”

 “Has he tried putting other things inside himself?  Fingers, toys, or the like?”

“No.  I mean, I prepared him with my fingers before we tried anything else, but…”

Sjöfn pursed her lips.  “Ymir’s balls, Thor, how young is this boy?  Has he even come of age?”

“He isn’t that much younger than I am,” Thor defended himself quickly.  “He’s about the same age as Loki.”  He felt himself veering too close to the truth and added, “Only a few years younger,” hoping to confuse the trail.

“He’s never done anything like this before and the first thing he wants to put in himself is your cock—and no, I’m not trying to flatter you, Your Royal Asininity, I’m just thinking about practicalities.”

Thor allowed the slightly smug grin to fall from his face.  “He didn’t… know he could feel this way about men until… until me.”

Sjöfn sighed, but seemed satisfied with the explanation, because she said, “That’s a story I’ve heard ten thousand times, and not just from men.  All right, sit down.”  She pointed at an armchair across the room from the bed, and Thor sat in it.  She herself took a seat in a smaller chair at a dresser littered with combs, jewelry, and various makeup-related implements, opened a drawer, and pulled out a long rectangular box.

“I’m a firm believer in taking first things first, as they say; so here’s what you should have done first.  You remember these?” she asked, opening the box and displaying its contents for Thor: five stopper-like objects of strengthened glass, swirled with festive colors, arrayed from smallest to largest.

“Of course.  How could I forget?”  He flashed her a mischievous grin.

She smiled back, with a touch of impatience.  “You and I never got past the third one.  Your new lover is going to want to try all five before he attempts your dick again.  Oh, stop smirking, you ass!”

“I preferred ‘Your Royal Asininity,’ to be honest.”

“Tell your lover he can use it as a pet name.”  (Thor shuddered at the thought.)  “Here’s what I’m going to do.  I’m going to write down the name of the shop where I got these, and you’re going to buy a set for your young man.  No, scratch that, I’m going to buy another set for you because it really wouldn’t do for a prince of Asgard to be seen making that purchase, or even sending a servant for it.  You’re going to come back here in a week’s time to pick it up and pay me back—with a small finder’s fee because I know you can afford it.”  She gave him an exaggeratedly cheeky wink.

Thor pretended indignation.  “I never would have thought of withholding it!  I know exactly how expensive your time is.”

“Yes, you do, don’t you?  We can go over this again when you come back to get them—or no, I’ll include some written instructions for the boy himself; best to cut out the middleman.  But the important thing is this: he should try each of them until they become comfortable to wear for… let’s say an hour at a time.”  She gave him a sly smile and he repressed the urge to smirk again.

She continued briskly: “He might be able to go through all of them in a few days, or he might need to spend several days adjusting to one size.  He can try them on his own or with your help, as he prefers.  He probably shouldn’t try wearing one as he goes about his day… not until he becomes _very_ accustomed to the feel of them; he should set aside some private time in the evening when he can take care of… whatever he needs to do.  Once he’s become comfortable with having the largest one inside for an hour, have at it.”

Thor stood up, walked over to Sjöfn, took her face between his hands, and kissed her on both cheeks.  “How can I ever thank you enough?”

“Well, you will be paying me for my time this evening—a little extra if there’s anything else you’d like to do?”  Her smile was brightly innocent.

Thor laughed and said, “As out of character as it may seem for me, I am resolved to be faithful to my love.”

“Oh, that’s sweet—and yes, I really mean that; I’m not making fun of you.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Truly, I’m not!” she protested, laughing, then cleared her throat and returned to seriousness.  “A few more things.  If there’s anything that helps relax him—wine, or perhaps something stronger—a reasonable amount before you try it again is a good idea.  But not so much that he can’t tell you what he needs.”

“Of course!”  Thor frowned, this time with genuine indignation.  “I’m not an idiot.  Or a monster.”

“I know that,” she said placatingly, “but I want to be very thorough.  Finally: as much as (I’m sure) you love to look on your beloved’s face, for the first time, it may be easier for you to take him from behind rather than facing him.  Which is not to say that you can’t do it face-to-face, but since you had trouble with your first attempt…”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” Thor said.

Sjöfn gave a final businesslike nod, then stood up to see him to the door.  “I am in your debt, my lady,” Thor said as she opened the door for him.

“Settle up with Tove at the front desk and you won’t be,” she teased.

“Even so,” he insisted.

She stood on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek.  “I really am happy for you, Thor.  You deserve to be loved, really loved, by someone who knows you well enough to see past the glow of royalty.”

 _It’s easy enough to see past it when you’re bathed in it as well,_ Thor thought, but all he said was “Thank you, Sjöfn.  For everything.”

“See you next week, Your Highness,” she said cheerfully, then stood in the doorway with her arms folded until he had made his way down the hall to the stairs.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope Sjöfn wasn't too Manic Pixie Dream Girl. And do tell me if anything in the chapter is offensive or insensitive toward sex workers. I do actually welcome (politely presented) constructive criticism.
> 
> 12/6/17: Changed a reference to a Valkyrie named Bryhhildr (whom we now know is elsewhere, the rest of the Valkyries having been slaughtered by Hela and the group never re-formed) to a skald named Sága (inspired by "The Almighty Johnsons").


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki gets some more practice; Thor gets a scare and an idea from Frigga, and some useful accessories from Sjöfn.

“How went your meeting with your… professional friend?” Loki asked once he and Thor had retreated alone to Thor’s chambers after supper.

“Sjöfn,” Thor corrected; it seemed odd to keep referring to her in such impersonal terms.  “It was very… productive.”

“So… what did she advise?”  Thor noticed that Loki was unconsciously twining his fingers together in the way that he tended to do when he was anxious; he seemed to have inherited the habit from their mother.

“She offered to procure something—some things—that will help with… preparation.  I’ll fetch them from her in six days; she thought they should be ready by then.”

“And in the meantime…?”  Loki raised his eyebrows, trying to look impatient, but Thor detected relief in the lines of his face.

“In the meantime we’ll do what we have been doing.”  He paused.  “Sjöfn did hint that becoming more accustomed to fingers would be helpful.”

“Well, I don’t suppose I can object to that,” Loki said.  His smile was suggestive, though when he stepped closer Thor could see the shadow of nervousness hovering at its edges.

“I hope you’re not just ‘not objecting,’” Thor said with a teasing smile of his own as he closed the distance between them.

He cupped a hand around the back of Loki’s neck to pull him forward for a kiss, slow and gentle; he combed his fingers through the hair that hung down over his neck, and found himself annoyed by the slight resistance he met from the oils and potions with which he lacquered it straight.  He sometimes wished Loki would let his hair curl, soft and wild, as it naturally tended to do.  But sometimes he felt privileged that only he got to see it that way, when Loki stepped out of the bath after a particularly sweaty bout of lovemaking, or after he and Thor washed away the heat, dust, and tension of a sparring match together.

Oh, the little noises Loki was making in his throat, half-laugh and half-whimper… Thor steered him to the bed, already pulling off items of clothing, not especially picky about whether they were Loki’s or his own.  The laughter caught in Loki’s throat was released, effervescent, when he drew back to remove his clothing more systematically.  Thor did the same, graceless and careless, and then, once they were finally naked, wrapped his hand around the back of Loki’s neck again to pull him into another kiss.  They collapsed halfway onto the bed, somehow, and Loki pushed Thor off so that he could make his way up to the pillows.

“So, I’m to become more accustomed to fingers…?” Loki said with a coy smile that still could not entirely hide his nervousness.  He lay on his back with his knees bent but his legs only slightly parted and his hips at an angle so that one leg shielded his opening from Thor’s view.

Thor sighed.  He was tempted to insist again that he only wanted to do this—any of it—if Loki was completely comfortable with it, but he knew that Loki would only snap at him and insist that he was fine, he knew what he wanted, and Thor should stop trying to play the protective big brother, because it was really quite absurd under the circumstances.  (Thor had to concede that last point.)

“That’s what I’m told,” he said instead, trying to match Loki’s playful tone.  “I’m also told that it’s easier if you’re facing the other way, so—”  He made a _‘turn over’_ gesture with one hand.

“Oh!” was Loki’s response; apparently this was not something he had read in one of his books.  He turned over to lie on his front, then looked questioningly over his shoulder.

Thor grabbed one of the pillows from the head of the bed (there were always more than he knew what to do with).  “Raise your hips,” he said, and Loki obeyed; Thor placed the pillow underneath—being very careful of Loki’s half-hard cock—then patted his flank to tell him to relax again.

Thor picked up the jar of salve from his bedside table and then knelt between Loki’s legs, the little nudges from his knees prompting Loki to part them further, which he did with only a hint of reluctance.  Thor dipped one finger into the salve and brought it to Loki’s hole.  It occurred to him as it had not when they had tried this before, when he had been focusing more on Loki’s face than on these delicate folds of skin, how vulnerable Loki was making himself, how much trust this demanded of him.  It did not surprise him that Loki’s legs tensed when Thor took gentle hold of one cheek and pushed it to the side to give himself better access to the opening between them, nor that he flinched and hissed when Thor pressed the first finger against his entrance.

“Cold,” Loki said in explanation.

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t think to warm it…” Thor said, feeling like an idiot.

“Easily remedied,” Loki said lightly, echoing Thor’s words.  He reached a hand back and flexed his fingers in the universal signal for _‘give me,’_ and Thor handed him the jar of salve.  He held it for a few seconds, a faint green glow radiating from his fingers all the while.  “There,” he said.  When Thor took it back, the glass felt mildly warm, like a cup of tea that had been sitting a bit too long.

Thor took some of the newly warmed salve onto his finger and tried again.  Loki’s flinch was much more subtle this time, a mere frisson rather than a shudder.  Thor circled the furl of muscle with the pad of his finger, encouraging it to relax, then slid it inside.  Loki didn’t immediately clench down as he had last time, which seemed promising.  He added a second finger and the tightening and resistance were brief.  It seemed to be true that everything was easier from this angle—not only gaining entrance but finding that sensitive spot inside…

Loki groaned and shifted at Thor’s touch, apparently seeking the friction of the pillow against his cock.  Thor increased the pressure and the pace and Loki’s hips jerked forward, thrusting into the yielding fabric.  He was making little whimpering sounds in his throat again—of frustration, it seemed, as he ground his hips more firmly downward.  Finally he couldn’t stand it anymore and rose onto his knees and elbow so that he could take himself in hand.  Thor laughed at his exaggerated sigh of relief.

“Yes, laugh, why don’t you?” Loki panted, but there was no malice in it.  “Just wait until—ah!—until I’m doing that to you, but with your hands bound so you can’t touch yourself.  And on your… oh… on your back, too.”

“That sounds delightful,” Thor said with a grin that Loki could not see, but could no doubt hear in his voice.  “I look forward to it immensely.”

“Glad we’re in agreement—oh, fuck…”  Loki trailed off with another long groan when his orgasm hit.  Thor wondered if it had been sped along at all by the lovely image that Loki had provided them with; it had certainly pushed a little more blood into Thor’s already swollen prick.

Loki shoved the pillow out of the way and collapsed onto his back with a satisfied sigh.  Thor was still kneeling between his legs, and Loki reached out a lazy hand for his cock (it was, after all, all but begging for his attention) and gave it a tug that Thor took to be a summons as well as a caress.  He crawled up to crouch over Loki’s body, which both gave Loki better access to his target and allowed him to bend down for a lingering kiss.

“What would you like me to do?” Loki murmured against Thor’s lips when they broke apart.  “I could keep using my hand”—he ran his thumb deliberately over the head of Thor’s cock to punctuate his words, making him gasp—“or I could use my mouth”—he ran his tongue slowly over his bottom lip and slouched downward as if already positioning himself to do as he had offered.  “Or we could do, again, as Socrates and Alcibiades—didn’t do, actually.  To the great frustration of the latter.”  He smiled a bit smugly, evidently pleased with his own private joke.

Thor laughed and shook his head.  “I think you have a great potential talent for filthy talk, but you require more practice to hone it.”

“Me, talk filthy?”  Loki put on a scandalized look.  “But I wouldn’t want to tarnish my tongue’s sterling reputation…”

Thor snorted.  “Puns, brother?  Just for that, I’m going to demand that you put your tongue to better use.”

“Those were not puns, they were… wordplay.  But yes, I suppose I deserved that…”

He slid farther down the bed and Thor assisted him by climbing farther up so that he could kneel with his hands braced against the headboard.  Loki propped himself up on his elbows, his hands gripping the sides of Thor’s thighs, and put his tongue, and the rest of his mouth, to very good use indeed.  When he was nearing his climax, Thor tapped Loki’s shoulder, and he sat up to finish with his hand.  He was so well-practiced at that, now, that Thor could scarcely detect an interruption between the deft movements with which Loki wrung the last of his orgasm from him and the hand-wave with which he vanished the evidence.

The way they settled down together was just as well-practiced: Loki turned onto his side and Thor pressed his chest against Loki’s back, their bodies fitting together as if made from matching molds.  Which he supposed, in a way, they were.

“Someday I’d like to try finishing from just your touch inside,” Loki remarked (which, inconveniently, began to stir Thor’s blood again; he shifted his hips ever so slightly away from Loki’s, hoping it would not be noticed).  “But… not until I’ve grown more used to the feeling.”

“It is… not for the uninitiated,” Thor agreed with a soft chuckle.  “The process is a sweet agony, but the result is well worth it.”

“I hadn’t even been certain that it was really possible; I thought perhaps it was an exaggeration of erotic writers, intent on demonstrating the prowess of the protagonist’s cock.”

“But now you believe it is possible?”

“Oh, yes,” Loki agreed vehemently.  (Thor willed himself to think of bathing in the ice-cold streams of the mountains.  Rolling in snow.  Jötunheim.)

“Well.  There will be time for many such things, in their time.  First things first.”

“Yes, so you keep saying.  I struggle to interpret it as anything other than a pointless tautology.  Unless you mean that one should begin the study of philosophy with the cause or causes of all things, the _archai_ , the first principles—with essences, or axioms, or God with a capital ‘G.’  _Then_ you would be saying something substantive, so to speak.”  Loki exhaled a tiny laugh.  “Though I would disagree with you.”

“God with a capital—?  Oh, for Yggdrasil’s sake, you know what I mean.”

“I still hate the expression.  Much like ‘what will be will be.’  Or worse, ‘it is what it is.’”  Loki shuddered pointedly.

“There’s just no pleasing you, is there?” Thor said with fond exasperation.

“Satisfaction’s not in my nature,” Loki replied haughtily, then adjusted his head on the pillow in a very conversation-conclusive manner.

 

* * *

 

They passed the rest of the week with similar amusements—though of course they did not spend every evening together, for fear that it would arouse suspicion.  Indeed, their new habit of spending every second or third evening together had already attracted notice, as Thor found out four days after his visit with Sjöfn, when their mother invited him to join her for breakfast in the courtyard garden adjacent to her quarters.

Their conversation started out with idle pleasantries about the change of seasons, the pleasant nip in the air, the striking colors of the leaves in the garden, plans for the coming Harvest Feast.  But before long Frigga brought up the matter that Thor knew, as soon as she broached it, was her true reason for summoning him.

“It’s wonderful to see you and Loki spending more time together,” she remarked, not as casually as she had intended.

“Oh, well, we’ve always enjoyed each other’s company,” Thor said, pretending surprise even as his stomach turned over with dread.  He let the half-eaten sweet roll that was in his hand drop to his plate; suddenly the thought of food nauseated him.

“I’m glad to hear you say that,” Frigga said carefully, then paused.  _Where is she going with this?_ Thor wondered.  He swallowed hard, as if that might get his heart out of his throat and back in his chest where it belonged.

Frigga took a breath and then continued, her words still slow and measured: “It had seemed that you two were drifting apart.  You were very close as boys, and well into your young adulthood, but over the past century or so you seemed to… go your separate ways.  Which might have all been well if you’d both had full circles of friends to fill your days, but, well… Loki doesn’t, or didn’t, and I feared that he was… isolating himself.”

 _Oh, thank the Norns._ Thor’s heart receded to its usual pace and position and his stomach started to unknot itself.  “Yes, I’d noticed that as well.  He has seemed distant in recent years, withdrawn, and strangely sad.  I did not know what to think of it.  At first I thought that perhaps he was angry with me, or had found other companions, but he was spending so much time alone… I, too, am glad that he seems to have emerged again from… whatever it was.”

“But you do not know what changed?” Frigga pressed.  “Why he withdrew in the first place, and why he is returning now?”

They were steering back into dangerous waters, and Thor felt his stomach tighten again.  “I have not asked,” he said (truly); “he seems testy if I even hint at a change in his mood” (also true).  “I do wish he would confide more in me, but it is enough that he seeks my company again; I do not wish to jeopardize that.”  (Lying was easy, if one lied only by omission!)

Frigga sighed and sat back in her chair.  “I wish he would confide more in me, as well.  It makes me feel wretched, asking one of my sons to report to me on the other.  To spy on him for me, I should say.  Nonetheless, if he says anything about the reason for any of it…”

“I would be glad to let you know anything I find out, unless I am sworn to secrecy.”

Frigga hummed, looking dissatisfied.  “The only thing I can work out is that Loki has seemed happier and more sociable since his latest visit to Midgard.  I wonder if something he found there has been helpful to him.”

“He did discover yet another new philosopher who captivates him, and whom he will quote at length if given the least opportunity…”

Frigga snorted.  “I think you know that’s not what I was getting at.  Don’t think I don’t have _any_ idea what you two get up to of an evening.”

Thor’s nausea returned in full force, despite his brain’s insistence that Frigga’s tone would not be so light if she meant what he feared.  But he relaxed as she continued: “The night gardeners have reported a strange smell wafting down from your balconies, as well as the occasional appearance of twists of paper burned at one end on the garden walk just below your chambers.  I have smoked my fair share of exotic substances—difficult as it may be for you to imagine—and I know that many of them can alter the mind in pleasant and even beneficial ways.  If that is what has shaken Loki from his depression, all I can say is that I hope you will encourage him to keep going to Midgard for it.”

Thor was almost certain that cannabis was not the explanation for Loki’s sudden change of demeanor, but he was glad that Frigga had reminded him of it.  He recalled that one of Sjöfn’s recommendations was that Loki should take something to relax him— _“wine, or perhaps something stronger.”_ Fortunately, it turned out, Loki did have something stronger… and then Thor’s face heated and his stomach twisted again as he considered that he was in his mother’s presence and thinking of how to make it easier to fuck his own brother.

Frigga noticed his discomfiture and, blessedly, misinterpreted it.  “I know that most Asgardians think that anything that isn’t alcohol is probably poison—and for some of them that includes things like tea.  Or water.  But you may recall that I spent much of my youth in Vanaheim and, well… your grim friend Hogun is hardly representative of attitudes there.”

 

* * *

 

Thor returned to The Mead of Poetry at the appointed hour on the appointed day and Sjöfn was waiting for him.  Once in her room, she presented him with a rectangular box of dark wood like the one she had shown him previously.

“I didn’t know what colors your beloved would like, so I asked for a little of everything,” she said with a sunny grin, as if she were talking about what color gowns a young noblewoman might like for her spring wardrobe.  “But I did make sure to ask that the largest one be in your colors,” she added with a lift of her eyebrows.

And so it was, the tapering glass spiraled with lines of red, silver, and dark blue.  By coincidence—or so, at least, Thor fervently hoped—the one beside it was spiraled with the colors that Loki favored: rich green, black, and gold.  _Perhaps they were intended as the colors of summer,_ Thor told himself, shooting a furtive look at Sjöfn; she was still smiling playfully, looking utterly unperturbed.  The smallest, it seemed, was made to look like a candle flame (which its shape did suggest), while the delicate white and silver tracing of the next called to mind an icicle.

“It seems strange that so much artistry went into these, considering where they’re meant to go,” Thor remarked.

“Even the most humble of craftsmen may take pride in their work, is it not so?” Sjöfn rejoined.

“I don’t know if ‘humble’ is the word I would have chosen…” Thor muttered.

Sjöfn laughed.  “You’re a prince!  No doubt your life is filled with pointless beauty.  More artistry probably went into your toilet than into most people’s entire homes.”

She was exaggerating, perhaps, but she did have a point.  “These are, indeed, a princely gift,” Thor said expansively, hefting the box, “and I am ever grateful to you for acquiring them.  Now, how much do I owe you…?”

Sjöfn handed him a receipt, with her own additional fee noted at the bottom.  Thor put the box down on her dressing table and dug in the small bag that hung at his belt for the correct coinage.  While he was doing that, Sjöfn slid a folded piece of paper behind the velvet lining of the box.  “The instructions for your young man,” she explained when Thor gave her a brief questioning look along with the coins.  “Thank you, Your Highness,” she added, bobbing a very correct curtsy.

“Don’t thank me!  I already don’t know how to thank you enough for the help you’ve given.”

Sjöfn waved a dismissive hand.  “It’s no trouble at all!  And no more than a friend should do, when in a position to be of service.”

“Well, then, I’m honored to have you as a friend,” Thor said, and leaned down to kiss her cheek, returning the parting gesture that she had offered the week before.

“I believe the customary saying for such an offering is ‘wear them in good health,’” Sjöfn said with a characteristically mischievous smile as she showed him out the door.  “Pass that along to your man, won’t you?”

A noise escaped him that was somewhere between a laugh and a snort.  “I’m sure he’ll appreciate the wish.”

When Thor was partway down the hall, Sjöfn called out “Oh!” as if she had just remembered something, and Thor turned to see her pointing an emphatic finger at him.  “Lubrication!” she said.  “You can never have too much of it.”  A slight pause.  “Well, almost never.”

“Did you have to shout that at me down the hallway?” Thor said in a hushed voice, taking a few steps back in her direction.

Sjöfn rolled her eyes.  “You do know what kind of business this is, don’t you?”

Thor sighed and gave her a small wave as he turned again to leave.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone catch the nod to the _Doctor Strange_ credits tag scene?
> 
> Yeah, I don't know if Asgardians have "toilets," exactly, but I'm sure they have some kind of indoor plumbing.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki starts trying out his new present; he and Thor agree to a wager.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm no longer committed to a specific number of chapters because this fic keeps expanding in weird directions... I think I have poor impulse control. Definitely poor detail control. Sorry about that. I've had little time to edit recently, what with all the job applications and the dissertation due in less than a month... shit.
> 
> MagdalenaCS asked for Loki's POV, and since there might be 2 more chapters after this and it wouldn't be off-balance to switch halfway through, I decided to give it a shot.

 

Loki looked down at the box in his hand with what might have been either excitement or trepidation or some combination of them that, in any case, was making his stomach feel very odd.  Thor was smiling encouragingly at him, though Loki could sense some nervousness from that quarter as well: Thor was anxious for his gift to be well-received.

Loki steeled himself and opened the box.  All he could see at first were five glass discs of increasing size resting atop a bed of velvet.  He tugged on the smallest and from its niche emerged what looked very much like a bottle stopper, or perhaps a chess piece, tapered at one end, widening until it abruptly narrowed at a sort of neck that joined the bulb-like part to the disc that formed its base.  It was made of blown glass, but Loki could also sense the magic that had gone into it, strengthening it so that it would not break even under considerable pressure.  And clearly it had been made with an eye to style as well as substance: the colors that had been worked into it made it look like a candle flame, with a heart of blue shading into gold and then red toward the rounded tip.

Loki recognized the object from the reading he had done on sexual customs throughout the Realms, so he knew where it was supposed to go.  “This seems like a remarkably literal interpretation of the phrase ‘to light a fire under one’s ass.’”

Thor’s expression had started to progress from anxious to actually worried, so Loki assured him, “This was an excellent idea.  Thank you.”

“I can’t take credit for the idea,” Thor admitted.  “But I’ll take credit for going to the person who had it.”

Loki, meanwhile, had gone to the other end of the box and pulled out the largest of the glass stoppers.  “It’s in your colors,” he noted.

“Sjöfn was having herself a bit of a joke,” Thor acknowledged dryly.

Loki pulled out the next-to-largest and felt like his heart had stopped for half a second when he saw his own colors alongside Thor’s.  “Was this a joke of hers, too?” he asked flatly.

Thor looked horrified.  “Of course not— of course I didn’t tell her— I would never,” he stammered.

Loki scrutinized him briefly through narrowed eyes and decided that he was telling the truth.  “Did you give her any clues that might have allowed her to figure it out?” he asked, still stern and urgent but no longer cold.

Thor’s brow furrowed as he considered it, no doubt running conversations through his mind.  “I certainly don’t think so.  She is very perceptive, to be sure, but she would have to be preternaturally so to guess at _this_.”

“I very much hope that you are right.”

“Perhaps the glassblower was having a joke of his own,” Thor suggested.  “If she asked that the largest be red, blue, and silver…”

“…it might have amused him to make the second green, black, and gold,” Loki finished.  “Well.  I have heard worse hypotheses.”

Loki replaced all of the stoppers in their niches and was about to close the box again when Thor said, “She left you instructions in writing…”

Now that he was looking for it, Loki noticed the very edge of a piece of paper sticking out between the dark wood of the box and the black velvet cushion.  He pinched it between the nails of his thumb and forefinger, drew it out, unfolded it, and skimmed over it.

“An hour at a time, eh?”  He cast a sly glance up at Thor.  “Impressive.”

Thor’s face flushed and he cleared his throat uncomfortably, though he did not appear displeased.  “Well, that might include several, ah…”  He paused.

“Instances?” Loki filled in for him.

A short “Mm” was Thor’s assent.

“Well, I suppose this shall keep me busy for the next week or so.”

“It could keep _us_ busy, if you’d like,” Thor offered.

Loki frowned.  “What good would that do?  Unless it is intended as an odd kind of solidarity…”

Thor returned his frown.  “This is not meant to be a hardship, Loki.  And if it is, I would not have you do it.  But no, I meant that I could be with you when you try them—we could make it a part of our sporting.”  He tried a mischievous smile and mostly succeeded.

“Ah.”  Loki drummed his fingers on the lid of the box, which now lay closed on Thor’s bed.  “I think perhaps… I would like to undertake it on my own, at least at first.”

“Of course!” Thor said instantly, looking only moderately disappointed.  “However you are most comfortable.”

Loki glanced down at the instructions again, thoughtful.  “Your friend advises me not to try wearing them in public until I have grown accustomed to the feeling.”

“That seems wise.”

“Unless I am mistaken, you have some experience with these.”

“Yes, that is true,” Thor replied cautiously.

“Suppose we were to make a wager, and if I win, you have to wear one to a High Council meeting.”

Thor’s eyebrows rose precipitously.  “What are we wagering on?”

“A game of chess, perhaps?”

Thor shook his head.  “I don’t like my odds nearly well enough.”

“A sparring match, then.”

“Weaponless,” Thor put in quickly.  “And no tricks, either.”

“That seems to put the odds decisively in your favor,” Loki remarked.

“As it should!  What do I get if you lose?”

Loki grinned.  “The same, only at a later date.  Since it seems that I have committed myself to becoming accustomed to them in any case.”

Thor’s attempt at a mischievous smile was much more successful this time.  “Done!”

Loki held up a cautionary finger.  “I have not agreed to a weaponless sparring match.  I ask that we fight with staves, to even the odds.”

Thor held out his arm and Loki gripped it at the elbow while Thor did the same: the seal on a warriors’ bargain.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I believe I have some business to attend to,” Loki said briskly, hefting the box.

“With not even a kiss as my thanks for going to the trouble to procure them?” Thor teased him.

“I did say ‘thank you,’” Loki pointed out.  “And I should hope that you thanked the person who _actually_ went to some trouble to procure these by paying her.”

“Spoilsport,” Thor charged with a very handsome pout.

Loki gasped.  “Me?  Never.”  He put the box back down on the bed and pulled Thor into a kiss that lasted longer than was strictly required by gratitude.

“Suppose I were to help you relax for the task at hand,” Thor murmured in his ear, his voice seeming to resonate through Loki’s chest and into his groin even as Thor’s hand wandered down to his hip.

“A reasonable proposal,” Loki breathed against his neck, though in truth he was only repeating what his cock had already said.

Loki returned to his own chambers half an hour later, quite a bit more relaxed than he had been (as was Thor, incidentally).  He wanted to try his new gift before the looseness of limb and sense of warmth and well-being dissipated.

He now had in his bedroom a little jar of the same salve that he and Thor used, though he’d never really had much use for it before—even for solitary pleasures.  He got it out of his bedside table drawer and set the box beside it.  Even just staring at them he felt foolish, so he went into his sitting room and fetched the flask of wine and the glass that he habitually kept on a shelf, poured himself a sizeable measure, and tried to gulp it down.  He coughed after the first swallow: one did not simply gulp down wine, especially if it was half-decent.  He sipped it at a more measured pace, staring down the box as if it were his challenger on the field of battle.

He had consumed half the glass of wine by the time he felt ready to take off his clothes.  He knew he could just remove his trousers, but that would make him feel even more ridiculous than being completely naked.  Another few sips and he was ready to open the box.  The paper with the instructions was now lying on top; he took it out, and unfolded it, and scanned it again.  Become comfortable wearing each for an hour at a time, from the smallest to the largest; warm them first; make sure the area is clean; lubricate generously.  All fairly obvious.  But then there was a final piece of advice that was not at all obvious, which he had never encountered in any of his research into the erotic, and which might have made the difference between failure and success in his first attempt with Thor.

 _“As counterintuitive as it sounds,”_ the instructions read, _“when you’re trying to put something into your ass, pretend that you’re pushing something out (because we’re all used to doing that).  Really all you’re doing is relaxing the muscles, which is what needs to happen either way.”_

Well, then.  Loki took the smallest glass stopper out of its niche, held it in one hand and the jar of salve in the other, and warmed them with his seiðr.  When that was done, he set them down to drain his glass of wine (there was little enough left that he could do the dramatic toss-back without coughing.  It was the little things).  Then he crouched on the bed on his hand and knees, painted some of the salve over his hole, and brought the little stopper to it.  _Pretend you’re pushing something out._   And then it was in.

It felt… odd.  Like having a finger or two in constantly.  Or like he desperately needed to take a shit.  But it wasn’t so bad if he sternly told his puzzled body that wasn’t what was happening.

Now what?

Leave it in for an hour.  He could do that.  He turned over to lie on his back, with his knees still bent (he felt like it might fall out if he straightened them), and stared at the ceiling.  This was going to become boring very quickly.  He reached for the book on his bedside table.  It was a volume of a very dry history of the war between the Aesir and the Jötnar that Thor had given him for his eight-hundredth birthday (he had requested it, not knowing how dull it was going to be): he deliberately kept something extraordinarily boring by his bed in case he had trouble falling asleep.  In this instance, however, he definitely did not want to fall asleep, so that wouldn’t do.

He stood up very carefully and walked stiff-legged into the sitting room and study adjoining his bedroom, where he kept his ever-expanding collection of bookshelves.  He scanned the one containing his newest acquisitions until his eyes alit on one of the books he had bought on his latest trip to Midgard.  It was a novel that all the well-dressed, creamy-skinned socialites in New York had been raving about, called _This Side of Paradise._ The title had appealed to him, as had the author, insecure and overeager to impress as he had been.  Loki understood the impulse all too well, and could hardly blame the man.

He walked gingerly back to his bed, lay down again, and started reading.  The style was brisk and lilting; the characters were all insufferable, but the narrator was winkingly aware of it.  Soon, though, the characters’ narcissistic pretensions were making Loki almost as uncomfortable as the plug in his ass.  He knew that the protagonist was a fictionalized version of the author, and he could tell that the author was shielding himself from ridicule or reproach for his youthful follies by demonstrating that no one could be as disgusted with him as he was with himself.  The Norns knew Loki understood that impulse as well, but he was in no mood to be the indulgent audience for this Midgardian’s self-abasement.

He was almost regretting telling Thor he wanted to try this on his own first; maybe it would have helped to have some distraction.  When he forced himself to stop thinking of it as feeling like needing to shit, there was a strange pleasure in it, the slight stretch, the feeling of fullness.  If he hadn’t come so recently, he might even have found it arousing; as it was, his cock seemed to be expressing only a mild curiosity about the new sensation, but couldn’t be bothered to get up and do anything about it.

That could surely be fixed.  He dipped his fingers into the salve again and began running his right hand lazily up and down his length while with his left he circled first one nipple and then the other until they stiffened, then pinched each one hard enough to make himself gasp.

It was no good.  It was Thor’s hands he wanted, not his own.  Nor did he desire this sensation—strange, frustrating, only half-pleasant as it was—for its own sake.  This was only a necessary trial for the sake of what he truly wanted: to have _Thor_ inside him; to fill his own painful incompleteness, his hopeless inadequacy, with Thor’s seemingly overflowing abundance of life, energy, warmth, _being._  To let them merge into one being, as nearly as possible, even if only for a short time, every once in a while.

He sighed and picked up _This Side of Paradise_ again _._  He allowed himself to acknowledge that a great part of what irritated him about it was how much the contemptibly self-absorbed protagonist reminded him of (a younger version of) himself.

_“Amory marked himself a fortunate youth, capable of infinite expansion for good or evil.  He did not consider himself a ‘strong ‘char’c’ter,’ but relied on his facility (learn things sorta quick) and his superior mentality (read a lotta deep books). … He granted himself personality, charm, magnetism, poise…_

_“Now a confession will have to be made.  Amory had rather a puritan conscience. Not that he yielded to it—later in life he almost completely slew it—but at fifteen it made him consider himself a great deal worse than other boys . . . unscrupulousness . . . the desire to influence people in almost every way, even for evil . . . a certain coldness and lack of affection, amounting sometimes to cruelty . . . a shifting sense of honor . . . an unholy selfishness …_

_“There was, also, a curious strain of weakness running crosswise through his makeup . . . a harsh phrase from the lips of an older boy (older boys usually detested him) was liable to sweep him off his poise into surly sensitiveness, or timid stupidity . . . he was a slave to his own moods and he felt that though he was capable of recklessness and audacity, he possessed neither courage, perseverance, nor self-respect.”_

Loki’s mouth twisted.  Had it been an hour yet?  He glanced at the chronometer on the wall; close enough.  He closed the book a bit more forcefully than might have been necessary and hobbled to the bathroom to remove the detestable object and wash it thoroughly, along with the relevant portion of his own body.

Even after the thing was out, he still felt slightly… open.  He supposed that was the point, if these were meant as preparatory to penetration.  It was a strange, vulnerable sensation, and he found himself clenching his muscles to try to make it stop.  He was fairly confident that they would return to normal—his reading had intimated that much—but he was having trouble making himself _feel_ that way.

 _I’m not doing this for its own sake,_ he repeated to himself as he pulled on his nightclothes.  He lay down and extinguished the lights with a wave of his hand, then lay in the dark for several minutes, feeling uncomfortable.  Clearly sleep was not coming of its own accord.  He turned on a small lamp on his bedside table with another hand-wave, poured himself another glass of wine, and picked up the history of the Aesir–Jötnar War. That seldom failed to bore him into unconsciousness.

The next evening, when he was to try the second plug, he decided he was going to do his best to ignore the damned thing.  He took to bed with him the book he had been reading on the prospects for making illusions (glamours as well as projections) tangible.  (The author believed it was possible, though still a few centuries away; Loki himself was skeptical.)  He poured himself a glass of wine (there was only so much he could manage to ignore unaided) and drank it in between removing articles of clothing.

The second glass plug was the one whose swirling white and silver interior lines made it resemble an icicle; he shuddered at the thought of truly putting such a thing where this was to go, but not entirely with horror.  This time he had to breathe a little more deeply and concentrate a little more on relaxing while he bore down, but it was not so very much more difficult than the previous.  He had some practice now with convincing his body that, however similar the sensation, he did not need to defecate.  It was also becoming clearer to him why this experience was considered to be pleasurable.  Nonetheless, he steadfastly ignored it while he confirmed himself, disappointingly, in the opinion that the author of this book (unlike himself) was full of shit.

The following evening, while Thor was engaged elsewhere, Loki intended to continue progressing through his task, but he met with greater difficulty than before.  His first attempt to insert the third plug (pale gold with an iridescent sheen, like a seashell, which he might have found charming under different circumstances) met with failure: the stretch became painful before the thing was all the way in.  Very well; he would prepare himself with his fingers first.

The next try was successful… but his attempt to ignore it while he read was less so.  Every so often, when he shifted his posture just so, the very tip of the plug brushed that sensitive place inside that Thor had found with his fingers.  It was maddening.  He tried to sit very still against the headboard of his bed, but soon his back began to cramp, and the moment he moved to stretch it, the damned plug started torturing him again.  This was impossible.  It had been scarcely a quarter of an hour, but he gave up and took it out, and washed himself with cold water to try to counteract the effects.

He decided that he would only try it again in Thor’s company… and that this was the one he would challenge Thor to wear to a High Council meeting.  Oh, that would be delicious.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you're wondering why the rather gratuitous excerpt from _This Side of Paradise_ was in there... well, once I had Loki make a reference to "the Princeton rub" in the first chapter, I started thinking that maybe the person who had told him about it was F. Scott Fitzgerald, who (1) went to Princeton, (2) was quite probably bi (in case you've seen that thing on Tumblr about him asking Ernest Hemingway to assess the size of his dick... yeah), and (3) was played by Tom Hiddleston in _Midnight in Paris_ (which I haven't seen). And then I was wondering whether I was going to go anywhere with that joke, and I remembered that I had used the Nietzsche quote "Where the tree of knowledge stands, there is always paradise" ( _Beyond Good and Evil_ 152) in an earlier fic and I thought the title resonated interestingly, so I started reading it to see if I could do anything with it, and I had the thoughts that Loki reports.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor and Loki have a sparring match to settle a wager (over which of them will have to wear a butt plug to a High Council meeting); bathing together afterward leads to a bit more than bathing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm alive! And I've finished and defended my dissertation. So here, have a very long and dirty chapter.

The following morning Loki found Thor on the training yards—practicing with quarterstaffs, curiously enough.  He leaned coolly against the railing of the court where Thor was sparring with a captain of the Einherjar, waiting for Thor to finish his bout.  Before long Thor disarmed the captain, who directed something between a salute and a bow first at Thor and then at Loki before gathering up his shirt and heading toward the baths.

“Fancy a match?” he asked Thor lightly while the latter wiped the sweat from his face.

Thor paused and scrutinized Loki’s face; Loki raised his eyebrows significantly.

“Now?” Thor asked.  “While I’m just off a fight and you’re still fresh?  That hardly seems fair.”

“One might look at it that way,” Loki acknowledged.  “Or one might say that you’re warmed up while my limbs are still cold.”

Thor narrowed his eyes, but seemed to accept Loki’s reasoning.  “You’re on.”

Loki removed his tunic and shirt; if he did it a little more slowly and showily than was strictly necessary, no one but Thor would notice.  He took up the staff that Thor’s previous opponent had left and gave it a few experimental swings, accustoming himself to its heft, before he gave Thor the nod that he was ready.

The brothers were well-matched in this kind of contest: they were very nearly the same height, with a similar reach; and while Thor could put more power into his swings and keep up such effort for longer, Loki was quicker at dodging blows and darting in for targeted strikes.  But the advantage Loki had in this instance was a mighty determination to win this wager, which he had reason to suspect Thor lacked.

If Thor was deliberately letting Loki win, he was at least gracious enough not to be too obvious about it; he made Loki work even for what might have been a foreordained victory.  An audience gathered to watch the princes match their considerable skills: soldiers who had wandered over from adjacent practice courts as well as nobles (many of them ladies, Loki noted out of the corner of his eye) who had been passing by when they saw the cluster of soldiers ringing the one court and came over to see what they were all so attentively watching.  Perhaps some of the soldiers or nobles had also sent quick messages to summon friends who might not wish to miss such a match.

When Loki was, at last, the first to disarm Thor and level the end of his staff at his chest, he thought the murmur that rose from the crowd sounded mostly disappointed—though some genuinely enthusiastic cheers also emerged from the hubbub (notably from a certain subset of the ladies).  When Thor smiled wickedly at him and proposed, “Best out of three?”, the much louder cheer from their audience told Loki that he could hardly say no.  He lowered his staff and leaned a little closer to mutter “Cheater” loud enough for only Thor to hear even while nodding for the benefit of the crowd.  “Just taking a leaf from your book,” Thor murmured back.  Resentment flared briefly in Loki’s stomach at the accusation, even though he knew Thor had a point.

Thor won the second bout.  Of course he did; even if he was intending to lose the bet, he would have made an effort to draw out their match in order to keep things exciting for his adoring subjects.  He had as much of a showman’s instinct as Loki did, little as he would have liked to admit it.  Unsurprisingly, the cheer from the crowd sounded much more joyous at Thor’s victory than it had at Loki’s.  Thor directed his blinding smile around at his supporters, acknowledging their adulation with a gracious nod, though he was sensible enough not to make an unseemly show of triumph.

Genuine anger was starting to simmer in the pit of Loki’s stomach as they faced each other for their third bout.  Thor still wore a smile, damn him, knowing, teasing, even faintly mocking.  Loki knew his anger would only distract him and make him careless, so he tried to tamp down the worst of it and channel the rest into grim focus and determination.  His mouth was hardened into a thin line, the movements of his staff hard and precise and vicious, even while Thor’s smile grew broader and fiercer and his fighting style played to the crowd, demonstrative and virtuosic without yet lapsing into sloppiness.

Loki was finally able to disarm Thor for a second time, but Thor ducked and rolled before Loki could mime the killing blow.  He kicked Loki’s knee from behind, and Loki lost his balance but also rolled when he hit the ground so that he came up on his knees facing Thor, his staff raised to meet the coming attack.  The hungry glint in Thor’s eye in response to Loki’s posture was unmistakable.  Loki quickly regained his feet and pressed his own attack with renewed fervor.  As so often happened when the brothers sparred, the heat of anger deep in his belly was merging with another kind of heat.

When Loki disarmed Thor a third and final time, he was pressed against the railing of the court with Loki’s staff stretched across his throat.  He was breathing hard—as was Loki; his nostrils flared with it, even as he kept his lips pressed grimly together—and the look in his eyes told Loki it wasn’t only from exertion.

The crowd erupted with noise, groans of frustration and sighs of disappointment clearly audible amid the cheers and the shouts of “Well fought!”  Loki had almost been able to forget them in the intensity of his focus on Thor.  This reminder of their presence managed to abate his hunger, and he turned away, looking down so that he would not have to meet the eyes of the spectators.  A patch of white caught his eye, and he turned to find that someone had left two clean, slightly damp towels hanging over the railing.  Well, at least Thor’s worshipers were good for something.  Loki found himself faintly surprised that whoever it was had bothered to leave two.

Loki grabbed one of the towels and the rest of his clothing and pulled open the gate to exit the practice court; as much as he enjoyed performing, under the right circumstances, he disliked feeling so much like a circus animal on display.  When he at last raised his eyes to try to find his way through the crowd, they alit on a smiling face: Volstagg’s.  At least he was somewhat friendly.

The burly warrior pushed his way toward Loki like a galleon parting the waves.  “Well done, lad!” he said heartily.  Fortunately, he knew better by now than to try to clap Loki on the back.  “You do an old training sergeant’s heart proud.”

Loki snorted.  “You’re not old, Volstagg.  You had barely come of age when you taught me.”

“Humor a _relatively_ old man who’s delighted to see his former student triumph.  And without using a single magic trick!”

And there it was.  The tentative swell of pride at his one-time teacher’s praise quickly deflated.  _Those “magic tricks” have saved my life countless times,_ Loki imagined himself saying.  _And Thor’s, and yours probably._ Loki clenched his jaw and bit his tongue.

“Volstagg!” came Thor’s voice from the other side of his large friend; he had made his way out of the adoring throng.  He held up the other towel, which he had picked up from the railing along with his tunic.  “Was this you?”

Volstagg laughed.  “I saw the vigor with which you lads were going at each other, and I thought you might need ’em.”  He turned toward Thor to speak, then quickly turned away with a grimace and an exclamation of “Phew!  I guess I was right.”

Thor raised his arm to sniff under it, then roared with laughter.

“I can dampen my brother’s stench,” Loki offered coolly, “if you do not object to a _magic trick_.”

“Not after a fight, no,” Volstagg said, somewhat taken aback.  “And I suppose you don’t sweat at all?”

Loki smiled.  “I don’t let it stick long enough to smell it.”

“Hmph,” was Volstagg’s reply.  “So, what’s the wager, then?” he asked cheerfully.

“Wager?” Thor asked, feigning innocence.

“Oh, come now.  I know you don’t fight like that unless there’s something riding on it.  So, what is it?”

“That’s… between my brother and me,” Thor said.  Loki hoped that only he could hear the uneasiness in Thor’s voice, because he was listening for it.

“State secret, eh?”

“Something like that,” Loki said dryly.

Loki and Thor started to turn toward the palace and Volstagg paused, looking puzzled.  “Baths are over that way,” he said, nodding in the other direction.

“We’d prefer to bathe in our own chambers, considering…”  Loki jerked his head toward the slowly dispersing crowd.  “It might be difficult to find privacy in the soldiers’ baths.”

“Fair enough.  I’ll leave you to it, then.”  Volstagg gave Thor a friendly clap on the shoulder and Loki a lukewarm smile before he turned back toward the training yards.

“Well improvised,” Thor said under his breath as they entered the shade of the palace’s arcaded hallways.

“It’s me, what did you expect?” Loki muttered back.

“Nothing less,” Thor replied graciously.

Now that the urgency of the fight was wearing off, Loki was starting to feel the ache in his muscles and in the places where Thor had struck him with the staff, where bruises would form if he let them.  He found himself favoring his right leg: when he had rolled into a kneeling position, the gravel floor of the court had torn through his trousers and scraped his knee.  He cast a quick pain-dulling spell but would need to clean the cuts manually before he closed them, to make sure he didn’t seal any gravel or scraps of fabric into them.  As for the bruises… he wondered if he wanted to keep them.

After they walked a few more hallways in silence, Loki said, quietly but not deliberately lowering his voice, “They wanted to see me lose.”

“I think they wanted to see _me_ win,” Thor said, trying for a light tone.

“It amounts to the same thing,” Loki said.  His mouth twisted; he could almost taste the bitterness of his own words.

“Only when we fight each other,” Thor pointed out.

 _Are we not always?_ Loki considered saying, but then thought better of it.  “They don’t love me as they do you,” he said instead, and instantly regretted how self-pitying it sounded.

Thor paused, then sighed.  “You don’t always make yourself easy to love,” he said.  The words were harsh, but his tone was gentle; it disarmed Loki’s defensive impulse.

“I know,” he said.  For the past few centuries, however, the sharpness of his tongue had been a protective response to the disdain he perceived from others: if they denied him their esteem, he would show that he did not want it.  But how long had that been true?  Had he done something to earn their disdain even before he began to actively invite it?

“You might try making it easier,” Thor suggested, still gentle.

Loki snorted.  “Don’t you think it’s a bit too late for that?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean their minds are already made up about me.”

Thor frowned.  “You really think people are that closed-minded?”

“Aren’t they?”

“If they are, why bother to persuade them, Silvertongue?”  Thor’s soft half-smile indicated that the epithet was meant in friendly jest, not (as it so often was) in mockery.

Loki pursed his lips.  “It’s easy enough to _manipulate_ people using their prejudices—almost impossible to _persuade_ them on the basis of reasons.”

Thor’s eyebrows shot up and his mouth fell open a little.  “If you really think that about people…”

“…how can I possibly expect them to like me?” Loki finished for him, his voice sharp.

“That’s not what I was going to say,” Thor said with a little sharpness of his own.  “I was going to say, why would you even care whether they like you?”

Loki shrugged.  “I guess I keep hoping that I’ll be proved wrong.”

“And supposing you _are_ wrong—how can you hope to convince people of your true worth if you never show it?”

That stung; Loki felt himself flinching back as if struck.  “Don’t I?” he demanded.

“To me you do,” Thor said, placating; “but it’s as if you’re a different person when we’re alone than when you’re in other company.”

“Well, of course; we all become different people depending on the company we’re in.”

“I don’t,” Thor declared.

Loki had to stop and stare at him; he was stunned by such lack of self-awareness, especially on the heels of what had seemed like such good sense.  Fortunately, they had arrived at the door to Thor’s chambers, so he could avoid addressing the issue.  “Go on and start the bath,” was all he said, using magic to muffle the words from the hearing of any passersby or all-seeing Watchmen of the Nine Realms.  “I need to fetch something from my rooms.”

Thor’s grin told him that he knew exactly what that _something_ was.  “I look forward to your speedy return,” he said.

Loki walked the few steps down the corridor to his own door and went in to retrieve the long dark box from the drawer in his bedside table.  He was preoccupied by what Thor had said—wondering if Thor truly didn’t realize how differently he treated Loki when they were in public, or among his friends.  Was it only that he was so susceptible to picking up the attitudes of a group?  Or was it because Loki himself acted differently: aloof, guarded, every word calculated either to woo or to wound?

These thoughts were pouring cold water on the moment, Loki scolded himself.  He tried to recapture the way he had felt when he and Thor had been fighting with vicious purpose, when he had caught Thor’s hungry gaze at the sight of him kneeling with staff upraised, when he had cornered Thor against the railing with the staff across his throat.  They _were_ always fighting, one way or another, with words or fists or with their very existence; their bouts on the sparring courts only brought it into the open and made it very literal.  Loki loved it and hated it, just as he loved and hated Thor’s greater strength, warmth, and beauty.  More to the point, it kindled a fire in him that nothing and no one else had ever been able to.  He wondered whether it was like this for others—whether desire was always mingled with anger and envy and self-contempt—but suspected that in this, as in so much else, he was strange and alone.

Well, at least he was not alone in the perverse desire for his own brother, he thought with a savage gladness as he crossed their shared balcony from his room into Thor’s.  He and Thor were in this together, and if they ever let their guard slip, it would destroy them both.  Usually such a thought would seize him with cold terror and drive him to insist to Thor that they could not, they must not continue this madness… but now, still alight with the thrill and fury of their fight, he felt reckless and (he had to admit) a touch melodramatic.  Theirs was the kind of love that would make for a romantic epic (in the style of the Midgardians of southwest Europe some seven centuries before), or perhaps a tragedy for the stage.  He could almost imagine it, a few millennia hence—the youth of Asgard weeping for the doomed brothers whose people could not yet understand or accept their love.

“What are you smiling about?” Thor asked him, with a sly smile of his own, when he came into the bathing chamber and set the box down on the edge of the enormous tub—which might more properly be called a small lagoon.  The rose-gold marble wall that divided it from the rest of the room was nearly the height of his waist; steps led up to the top and down again into its deep pool, which was sunk a little below the level of the floor.  Thor was standing in the tub, which as yet had filled only to the middle of his shins, under the spray that came from above his head.  Loki recalled the description he had offered not long before: _“_ _All bronzed and glistening, the water beading and dripping off you like seed pearls…”_ It hardly did the sight justice.

“Nothing of importance,” Loki replied as he pulled off his boots.  “Just sharing jokes with myself, as usual.”

“Sometimes I think there’s enough of you to hold full council meetings in your own head.”

“Who says I don’t?”  He bent down to peel off his trousers very carefully, making sure to extract any threads that were sticking to the open cuts in his knee.

“Ouch,” Thor said, looking over (probably to see what was delaying him).

Loki shook off his sympathy with an impatient “Yes, yes” and finished removing his trousers and smallclothes.  He climbed the steps up to the edge of the tub and then down the broader, shallower steps that descended to the deepest part of the pool, where the water could come up to his chest if they chose to fill it all the way.  “Hand over the soap, would you?”

“I thought you didn’t let the sweat stick,” Thor ribbed him.

“Just because I don’t _smell_ disgusting doesn’t mean I don’t still _feel_ filthy.”

“I like you best when you’re feeling filthy,” Thor said with a wicked smile, stepping closer to drape his arms over Loki’s shoulders.

“Very clever.  If you’re not going to give me the soap, you can make yourself useful by washing my back.”  Loki turned around in Thor’s loose hold, then tilted his head up and closed his eyes to let the spray of hot water wash over his face.  Thor had set the temperature somewhat warmer than Loki preferred, but Loki didn’t let on; Thor had in the past jokingly described it as some sort of measure of manliness, how hot one took one’s bathwater, and Loki had resolved never to complain about it again.

“Here,” said Thor, and his hand was reaching around Loki’s waist to hand him the cake of soap.  Loki sighed and shook his head, but once he had taken it, he felt strong hands smoothing broad strokes along the tops of his shoulders, over his shoulder blades, down his spine.  He groaned when Thor put slight pressure on the beginnings of a bruise over his ribs (“Sorry,” Thor murmured, lightening his touch), then took in a sharp breath when Thor’s hands wandered to his hips and then to the very base of his spine.  He tried to focus on washing the parts of his body he could reach more easily, but nearly dropped the soap when Thor pressed himself against his back, his now fully hard cock slotting into the cleft of Loki’s ass as if they were made to fit that way.  Loki let out a shuddering sigh at this foretaste of what he wanted, more than anything… _Soon,_ he told himself, and made himself step away.

“There will be time enough for that,” Loki said wryly, hoping Thor could not hear the tremor in his voice.  “Aren’t there still a few things we need to do first?”

“Right.”  Thor cleared his throat.

Businesslike again, Loki bent to wash the dried blood, dirt, and gravel out of his knee before he closed the cuts with a touch that glowed faintly green.  “Any bruises you want healed?” he asked Thor.

“Hmm… you got in a good whack to my upper arm,” Thor said, “and another to my shin, which was just mean.  And here,” he said, pointing to a red mark high on his chest, just below his armpit.  “That one hurt like a Frost Giant struck it.  Oh Hel, you might as well put a blanket spell on my entire ribcage.”  He paused.  “You’re proud of yourself, aren’t you?”

Indeed, Loki had felt self-satisfaction flare hot and sudden in his chest as Thor began to enumerate his hurts, leaving a warm glow even after the initial burst had faded; and a smug smile had crept onto his face without his even noticing it.  “I might be,” he allowed.  Nonetheless, he put careful fingers to the places Thor had indicated, cleared away the blood that had spilled under the skin, found and mended the burst blood vessels.

“Don’t forget the shin.”

“What, you don’t want to think of me every time you walk into a piece of furniture?”

“I already do—wondering if it was you who suddenly moved it into my path.”

Loki smiled knowingly before he crouched to deal with Thor’s bruised leg.  Then he stood and said briskly, “Turn around, please.”

“Whatever for?”

“Washing… sensitive areas.”

Thor gave a quizzical little laugh.  “There’s nothing I haven’t seen… or touched.”

“That’s… different.  Washing is different.  It’s not…  Just turn around.”

Thor shrugged and did as he was told.

When he was finished (and had surreptitiously used magic to make sure the region was _thoroughly_ clean), Loki turned off the overhead spout.  The water in the tub came to their knees, and enchantments in the stone kept it hot, filling the air around them with a haze of steam that made Loki feel somewhat lightheaded—that or the heat or the receding adrenaline.

Loki made his way past Thor to the edge of the tub where he had set the box, beside the jar of lubricating salve that Thor had had the foresight to bring.  He opened the box, took out the third-largest plug, and turned back toward Thor, who was now watching intently.

Loki cleared his throat.  “This,” he said, holding out the pale gold glass stopper, “is what you have won the privilege of wearing to the High Council meeting three days hence.  Having attempted it myself, I can tell you that you will need to sit _very_ still if you do not wish to be terribly distracted.  I have not, however, succeeded in wearing it for an hour—much less two or three hours…”

“Oh, Norns have mercy,” Thor said under his breath.  Then, louder, “Are you sure it wouldn’t be wiser to go with a smaller one?  That one’s as large as I’ve ever tried myself, and… I know what you mean about the distraction.”

“Wiser?  No doubt.  But this will be far more entertaining.”

“For you, maybe,” Thor grumbled.

“For you, too,” Loki insisted.

“Given a certain interpretation of ‘entertaining,’ I suppose…”

“It will make a much better story.”

“That we can’t tell anyone else!”

“Oh, I’m sure we can come up with a non-suspicious reason we made a bet concerning these,” Loki assured him.  “Emphasize your involvement with Sjöfn.  A small scandal can throw the dogs off the scent of a larger one.”

“You’re being uncharacteristically sanguine about this,” Thor remarked.

“Perhaps,” Loki acknowledged.  “But you know that if I’m willing to take risks for anything, it’s for a good show and a better story… preferably involving your discomfiture.”

“You are truly cruel,” Thor said with a wounded air.

“And yet here you are,” Loki replied, wondering at it a bit even as he said it.

“And yet here I am,” Thor agreed.  And somehow he was standing very close, close enough to put his arms around Loki and draw him in for a kiss that left him feeling even more lightheaded than before.

Once Thor withdrew, Loki found himself a little unsteady on his feet, but determinedly ignored it.  “But for now,” he said, gesturing toward Thor with the little glass plug in a way that indicated that he was to take it, “I need your help accustoming myself to it.”  He was grateful to have a reason to lean his arms on the edge of the pool with his knees resting on one of the broad steps leading down.

“Your knee is all right there?” Thor asked from behind him.

“My, aren’t we solicitous,” Loki drawled, not bothering to turn around.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”  Loki took in a deep breath when he felt the touch of one cool, slippery finger at his opening, let it out slowly through his nose as the finger slid in.

“Don’t think I didn’t notice how you were looking at me when I wound up on my knees,” Loki added.

“Oh, I know you noticed.”  Thor added a second finger, and Loki took in another deep breath.  “And I hope to see it again, soon and often.”

“Is that so.”  The unimpressed tone he affected was marred only slightly by unsteadiness as Thor rotated and barely parted his fingers.

“Is it not right and proper that you should kneel before your future king?”

Loki wasn’t sure why it hurt so much to hear that; it was hardly something that they didn’t both know.  And it was never far from Loki’s mind, since Odin had informed them ten years before that he planned to crown Thor before the century was out: that Thor had succeeded where he had failed, even if only in the timing of his birth (but if that was all, why had Odin led him to believe that he had a chance at the throne?); that Thor would be above him for the rest of their lives, that Loki would have to bend the knee and acknowledge his brother sovereign.  But hearing _Thor_ say it, that was what hurt—the thought that Thor would lord it over him, as he had long feared.

But Loki was well-practiced at hiding his pain, so he rebutted cheerfully, with only a touch of malice: “On this occasion, however, you were defeated—so perhaps _you_ are the one who should be on your knees before _me.”_ As he said it, he felt Thor’s fingers withdraw, and a moment later smooth glass slid easily into their place.

“You would have your king kneel to you?”

Loki stood up abruptly; a bout of dizziness almost made him regret it, but he fought it back and turned to face Thor from the step above him.  “You’re not my king—not yet,” he said.  His tone was light and even, but there was a hint of warning in it.  “And even if you were… you promised that we would always be equals here.  Are you going back on that promise?”

Thor’s face flushed a little—with chagrin, Loki hoped, but Thor was just as stubborn as Loki was, and as reluctant to admit when he was in the wrong.

“Of course not,” he said, edging on defensiveness.  “I hope and expect that we shall both do a great deal of kneeling, each before the other.”

 _Even after you are king?_ Loki wondered… and wondered whether this could go on once Thor was crowned.  They could not hope to escape the realm’s scrutiny forever.

He shook the thought away and said, “Good.  Then as the victor, I command you, my defeated opponent, to kneel.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Thor did so.  The look he cast up was impudent even as he said, in mock-servile tones, “I am yours, to do your will.”

“Come forward.”

Thor shuffled closer on his knees, still looking up at Loki impudently, if not defiantly.  It seemed he was not entirely comfortable with this kind of game—though Loki suspected he would like it better if their places were reversed.  Perhaps (he grudgingly admitted to himself) they both would.

“Closer,” Loki demanded, and Thor obeyed, inching forward until Loki, taking hold of his prick (whose erection was flagging slightly), could press the head against Thor’s closed lips.

“You know what to do,” he said, still imperious.  Somehow he could not bring himself to say outright, _“Suck my cock”_ ; perhaps he did, after all, need practice with filthy talk.

Even as he continued to stare a challenge up through his eyelashes, Thor opened his mouth and showed that he did, in fact, know what to do.  Gently he displaced Loki’s hand to take his own grip around the base of Loki’s cock, and Loki was only too happy to let him.  He let his hips rock slightly forward, seeking more friction from Thor’s hand and lips and tongue; he closed his eyes, trying to give himself over to the sensation, to forget their quarrels and games and anything beyond this moment and _Thor,_ Thor devoting himself to Loki’s pleasure…

Then a sharp burst of new pleasure, somehow seeming to come simultaneously from his ass and deep inside his cock, startled him into crying out, and his eyes flew open.  Thor’s left hand was still gripping Loki’s length, but he had reached his right hand around behind him to take hold of the base of the glass plug inside him and was—there was no better word for it—fucking him with it.  It was not nearly as long nor as thick as a cock (least of all Thor’s), but it was long enough that the end of it hit the sensitive place inside him every time that Thor thrust in with it.

The twinned sensations of that repeated impact and of Thor’s mouth around his cock threatened to overwhelm him; another wave of lightheadedness crashed over him, his legs seemed to lose their strength, and he threw out a hand to brace himself against the side of the bathtub.  After an embarrassingly short time, he was spilling into Thor’s mouth, his knees trembling violently, leaning most of his weight on that bracing hand, which itself was starting to shake.  Thor let go of his hold on Loki’s cock and the base of the plug to grasp Loki’s hips, helping to steady him.

“Well,” Loki said breathlessly once Thor had withdrawn his mouth and he had recovered his balance somewhat.  “That still leaves the better part of an hour…”

“May I stand?” Thor asked, which confused Loki for a moment, before he remembered their little roleplaying game.

“Of course,” he said, waving a hand to signal (he hoped) that the game was behind them.  “And I suppose now it’s my turn, since you wanted to see me on my knees…”

“No, not now,” Thor said.  He was looking at Loki with a strange intent glint in his eye, and Loki’s head still felt too muddled to let him read it properly.  Thor climbed the steps to the edge of the tub and down again to the bathroom floor without bothering to grab a towel.  Loki shook his head and took his own towel from the side of the pool before he followed his brother, his legs still a bit shaky on the steps.  Thor turned back to point at the jar of salve and said to Loki, “Pick that up, would you?”

 _Why don’t you pick it up yourself?_ Loki half-heartedly considered saying before he shrugged and did as he was told.  Then his unasked question was answered when Thor swept him into what was known in some parts of Midgard as a “bridal carry,” after the tradition that a groom should not let his bride’s feet touch the threshold of their new home on her first entrance into it as his wife.

“Thor, what are you doing?” Loki spluttered.  “We’re dripping all over the floor!”  The floor not only of the bathroom but of the bedroom, as Thor carried him through the doorway into it.

“You can do something about that, can’t you?” Thor asked, sounding amused.

Yes, he could, but he had been too disoriented to think of it.  He draped his towel over Thor’s shoulder to free up a hand, with which he gestured to gather up and banish the water clinging to (and dripping off) their bodies.

Fortunately, he had (just barely) finished doing that before Thor tossed him—or dropped him?—onto the bed, somehow managing to do it with care and gentleness.  But however gentle it was, the impact still jostled the plug still in Loki’s ass, nudging it against the sensitive spot that had now turned _over_ sensitive.  Thor did not seem to notice his quiet grunt of pain; he climbed onto the bed over him, looking even hungrier than he had when they were sparring.  Loki shivered under that gaze—or perhaps it was only the relative chill of the bedroom after the excessive heat of the bath that raised gooseflesh all over his body and hardened his nipples to peaks.

“I can’t wait to be inside you,” Thor said, his voice rough but his fingers gentle as they combed stray tendrils of hair back from Loki’s face.

 _Oh._ Loki’s stomach jumped and churned with some indistinguishable combination of eagerness and anxiety.  “Do you—do you want to try now?”

“What?”  Thor looked startled.  “No, I didn’t mean… I didn’t really mean that I _‘can’t wait,’_ I just meant that I want it, very much.”

“That’s good to know,” Loki deadpanned.

“But I _can_ wait, I want to wait… all this waiting and preparation makes it seem all the more momentous and precious, like—like a sort of religious ritual.”

“A virgin sacrifice,” Loki volunteered, “where what is sacrificed is not the virgin, but his virginity.”

Thor snorted.  “If you like.  But I like to imagine it, to approach to it without yet crossing that boundary…”  He looked around briefly and found the jar of salve (closed, fortunately) on the bed where Loki had let it fall.  He nudged Loki’s thighs apart and slicked the skin between them, the way Loki had the night Thor had first tried to enter him, then slicked his own cock as well.  Loki didn’t have to be told to put his legs tightly together so that Thor could thrust in with a groan of relief.

Each thrust jostled the plug again, though fortunately Loki had recovered enough that it was no longer painful so much as annoying.  Thor was being careful of his softened prick, resting between their bellies, but it was impossible to avoid some unwelcome friction; and whereas the slide of Thor’s cock over his balls and the skin behind had been pleasurable with a little more distance from his own climax, now the nerves there, too, seemed overexcited, making every touch feel obtrusive.

He decided to focus his attention instead on Thor: running his splayed hands along his back and over his buttocks to feel the way the powerful muscles rippled under his damp skin; memorizing the look on his face, his eyes tightly closed, his lips parted for his heavy breaths that occasionally edged on quiet moans.  _That pleasure is because of me,_ Loki thought proudly, not for the first time; the thought had occurred to him before when he was working Thor’s cock with his hand or his mouth.  And perhaps it was more appropriate to think it when he had more direct control over the motions that produced it, but somehow he felt it would be more deeply, more intimately true when it was the inside of his body that caused such pleasure.

At last Thor finished, with a sigh that seemed torn from his throat and a shudder that ran through his whole body; Loki felt it under the hands he had pressed to his back.  Then he pulled away and collapsed onto his back beside Loki.  His breathing was already starting to return to normal; Loki supposed this hardly counted as much exertion for him.

“We should probably wash again,” Loki pointed out, “if we don’t want to go around the rest of the day smelling of sex.”

“Can’t you do something about that, too?” Thor asked impishly.

“Oh, honestly, Thor.  There’s only so much I can do with perceptual illusions.  What if I get engrossed in something else and lose my hold on it?”

“Yes, all right,” Thor sighed.  “But this time we should definitely not wash together.”

“That way lies perdition,” Loki readily agreed.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that came out about twice as long as previous chapters, which wasn't really intentional. Oops. The bit about Volstagg having been Loki's training sergeant for part of his military education is a little throwback to a very early fic of mine, [Silver and Gold](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5047336/chapters/11606062). Just having fun with the internally consistent fanfictional universe again...


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